Friday, September 14, 2007
A Day in the south of England
April 2007:
The owner of the organic grocer drove us to a long and winding motorway where we could thumb a ride. He'd travelled the Western hemisphere long ago, before becoming an eco-entrepreneur. He was kind, good-natured, and down-to-earth, which left me wondering why eco-stores always follow the same formula of tin-flute trickling water and incence. [ My all time favourite restaurant is a big dirty greasy spoon Tex-Mex in NYC's East Village that has an all-vegan menu and plays rock 'n' roll music loud.]
We didn't have to wait long for two dudes in a kind of mini-Woody, c. 1988 but a 1940s replica, to pick us up and ride us about 4 miles up road to an east-bound junction. They too had travelled - to many diving hotspots - and were saving up for the next excursion. Most people who pick up hitchers are bursting with memories of kindnesses afforded them on past travels.
Tonya took us from the junction just outside Cheddar as far as Bath. She works with children who have special needs and she took great interest in Maven's work in Africa, so much so that she kept the conversation going at her friend's going away party. The host's face was a sketch of human perplexity when Tonya announced casually, "These are two hitchhikers I picked up en route. Can you spare them some tea?"
The host, a marine biologist, was about to embark on a long tour of photographing dolphins and whales. Once she realized that Tonya wasn't joking she set to the task of extracting our stories with scientific precision and impartiality, while her twin sister's husband made corny jokes and recommended routes northward from the sidelines like he was practicing for fatherhood.
They gave us a splendid time, tea and doughnuts, and a map of Bath, in exchange for adding some spice to their Saturday afternoon, and we were off with our packs to walk through town and back to the highway.
Johnny picked us up just outside of Bath and drove us far enough to explain his philosophy of spreading love through a network of kind deeds. He'as an aeronautical engineering guitar player and he played us a recent recording of his band off his i-pod. The recording quality wasn't great but you could hear some talent in there, reminded us of Feist or Frente. They had a strong, subtle female lead vocalist, whom he was honoured to play with.
Like me, Johnny is a music and chocolate lover, particularly fond of the Double Decker brand, and opposed to war in principle. Together we dreamed of better ways of spending a trillion dollars than causing a civil war in Iraq; it was all too easy.
He contributed his own gas and dollars to our cause, bought us some delicious cornish pasties, and I gave him some of my chocolate. He drove out of his way to drop us in Oxford-town, from where we got a ride with 36-year-old Harvey, who thought we were 20-year-olds and seemed a little disappointed in his own life when he saw ours.
Harvey quickly took to complaining about Britain's poor roads and high taxes, a story we hear everwhere it seems. The people who complain least about roads are the people who don't have any: Mongolians.
Harvey was good enough to take us straight into the heart of Kennelworth, between Warwick and Stratford, by the old town-clock, where we met 17-year-old Andy Stone, one of the hundreds of teenagers with whom Maven has worked over the years. One of those relationships developed in one place and non-sequetorially continued elsewhere.
Andy gave us a historical tour through town, pointing out the many houses built in the 1500s, now lived-in monuments, the owners of which are barred from making any structural changes.
Andy's mother made us fishcakes and veggies and we all chatted about West Africa. Andy's father had sptent three years in Nigeria managing construction projects and partying with other expats until he met his wife and found other things to do elsewhere.
Jon came home later and we stayed up to watch NHL playoffs on satellite TV and talk about the boys' lives in Engliand. Andy, the younger, seems to have adapted completely right down to the accent, whereas Jon has retained his Canadianness to a much greater degree. Among the three siblings, Jon alone has been hit with foreigner fees for university, even though he's a UK citizen, because he didn't live in Britain for thee consecutive years before starting his higher (cost) learning.
He has a good job though, as a tourguide at a castle ruin near his house. That helps, and he gave us a free tour, the informal version complete with quips like, "Elizabeth I, talk about your diva! She had 400 people follow her around everywhere and do her bidding. They built an entire section of castle just for her 11-day visit. It took them two years."
Their father is having a tough time adapting too, even though he grew up in England. He's slowly adapting to the construction industry as practiced there - the completely different jargon, and the skyward housing costs, which have pushed them back into renting.
In this immigrant house, under the coffee table, was a headline reading 'Immigrants Taking Away Our Culture' as if it was fact. And it was fact according to a new report complete with numbers to prove it. One can only hope that somehow poor England survives this assault on its right to snooty pretentiousness.
The owner of the organic grocer drove us to a long and winding motorway where we could thumb a ride. He'd travelled the Western hemisphere long ago, before becoming an eco-entrepreneur. He was kind, good-natured, and down-to-earth, which left me wondering why eco-stores always follow the same formula of tin-flute trickling water and incence. [ My all time favourite restaurant is a big dirty greasy spoon Tex-Mex in NYC's East Village that has an all-vegan menu and plays rock 'n' roll music loud.]
We didn't have to wait long for two dudes in a kind of mini-Woody, c. 1988 but a 1940s replica, to pick us up and ride us about 4 miles up road to an east-bound junction. They too had travelled - to many diving hotspots - and were saving up for the next excursion. Most people who pick up hitchers are bursting with memories of kindnesses afforded them on past travels.
Tonya took us from the junction just outside Cheddar as far as Bath. She works with children who have special needs and she took great interest in Maven's work in Africa, so much so that she kept the conversation going at her friend's going away party. The host's face was a sketch of human perplexity when Tonya announced casually, "These are two hitchhikers I picked up en route. Can you spare them some tea?"
The host, a marine biologist, was about to embark on a long tour of photographing dolphins and whales. Once she realized that Tonya wasn't joking she set to the task of extracting our stories with scientific precision and impartiality, while her twin sister's husband made corny jokes and recommended routes northward from the sidelines like he was practicing for fatherhood.
They gave us a splendid time, tea and doughnuts, and a map of Bath, in exchange for adding some spice to their Saturday afternoon, and we were off with our packs to walk through town and back to the highway.
Johnny picked us up just outside of Bath and drove us far enough to explain his philosophy of spreading love through a network of kind deeds. He'as an aeronautical engineering guitar player and he played us a recent recording of his band off his i-pod. The recording quality wasn't great but you could hear some talent in there, reminded us of Feist or Frente. They had a strong, subtle female lead vocalist, whom he was honoured to play with.
Like me, Johnny is a music and chocolate lover, particularly fond of the Double Decker brand, and opposed to war in principle. Together we dreamed of better ways of spending a trillion dollars than causing a civil war in Iraq; it was all too easy.
He contributed his own gas and dollars to our cause, bought us some delicious cornish pasties, and I gave him some of my chocolate. He drove out of his way to drop us in Oxford-town, from where we got a ride with 36-year-old Harvey, who thought we were 20-year-olds and seemed a little disappointed in his own life when he saw ours.
Harvey quickly took to complaining about Britain's poor roads and high taxes, a story we hear everwhere it seems. The people who complain least about roads are the people who don't have any: Mongolians.
Harvey was good enough to take us straight into the heart of Kennelworth, between Warwick and Stratford, by the old town-clock, where we met 17-year-old Andy Stone, one of the hundreds of teenagers with whom Maven has worked over the years. One of those relationships developed in one place and non-sequetorially continued elsewhere.
Andy gave us a historical tour through town, pointing out the many houses built in the 1500s, now lived-in monuments, the owners of which are barred from making any structural changes.
Andy's mother made us fishcakes and veggies and we all chatted about West Africa. Andy's father had sptent three years in Nigeria managing construction projects and partying with other expats until he met his wife and found other things to do elsewhere.
Jon came home later and we stayed up to watch NHL playoffs on satellite TV and talk about the boys' lives in Engliand. Andy, the younger, seems to have adapted completely right down to the accent, whereas Jon has retained his Canadianness to a much greater degree. Among the three siblings, Jon alone has been hit with foreigner fees for university, even though he's a UK citizen, because he didn't live in Britain for thee consecutive years before starting his higher (cost) learning.
He has a good job though, as a tourguide at a castle ruin near his house. That helps, and he gave us a free tour, the informal version complete with quips like, "Elizabeth I, talk about your diva! She had 400 people follow her around everywhere and do her bidding. They built an entire section of castle just for her 11-day visit. It took them two years."
Their father is having a tough time adapting too, even though he grew up in England. He's slowly adapting to the construction industry as practiced there - the completely different jargon, and the skyward housing costs, which have pushed them back into renting.
In this immigrant house, under the coffee table, was a headline reading 'Immigrants Taking Away Our Culture' as if it was fact. And it was fact according to a new report complete with numbers to prove it. One can only hope that somehow poor England survives this assault on its right to snooty pretentiousness.
Labels: 2007, England, non-fiction, Travel
Thursday, August 02, 2007
cheddar medicine
Location: Somerset, SW England
Timing: April 2007
We’ve managed to throw the cheddar medical system into quite a tizzy. It seems this may be the very first case of Malaria in this sleepy township. Maven’s got the killer headache that twice before has indicated the mosquito sickness. The local general practitioner flew into a proper panic when he heard the word. “A mistake has been made!” he proclaimed. “You should not be at a general practitioner!” Although said GP has more letters after his name than all the experts in Ghana, those doctors wouldn’t panic if a busload of heart attack victims crashed into their clinic.
After several phone calls we found a hospital that agreed to do the necessary blood-work and we’re on our way. First we had to register then wait. Then answer questions about our problem, then wait in another room. Then answer more questions about the problem, then wait. Then Maven had to lie down to answer questions about the problem and give blood. The young and serious doctor refused to crack a smile as he asked if Maven felt up to returning to the first waiting room or preferred to remain horizontal. And we waited. In fact we waited out the doctor and another was on shift by the time we gathered the courage to ask how the tests were coming. Five more minutes till they led us to another room, this one with beds, one of which was assigned to hold Maven. We waited, 4 ½ hours in all, until two men and a woman gathered 10 feet from us to discuss Maven’s case just loud enough for us to overhear bits of it. Finally Dr. Singh told us that there was no sign of malaria in the blood, and that Maven’s symptoms were not severe enough to be cerebral malaria, but since she has no fever it could be a case of undetectable malaria. He added that the hospital can’t prescribe anti-malarials based on unconfirmed suspicion – they can be prescribed only when Maven starts peeing blood. The GP, however, could have prescribed drugs, had he not panicked.
Dr. Singh told us not to worry – he comes from another country where malaria is no big deal and drugs are given over the counter. “That’s because they don’t have the diagnostic tools we have here,” he said. “So it may take 4 ½ hours instead of ½ an hour but you at least know you get the right treatment” once you pee blood. In the meantime, you take aspirin and water and sleep on your giant throbbing head.
Timing: April 2007
We’ve managed to throw the cheddar medical system into quite a tizzy. It seems this may be the very first case of Malaria in this sleepy township. Maven’s got the killer headache that twice before has indicated the mosquito sickness. The local general practitioner flew into a proper panic when he heard the word. “A mistake has been made!” he proclaimed. “You should not be at a general practitioner!” Although said GP has more letters after his name than all the experts in Ghana, those doctors wouldn’t panic if a busload of heart attack victims crashed into their clinic.
After several phone calls we found a hospital that agreed to do the necessary blood-work and we’re on our way. First we had to register then wait. Then answer questions about our problem, then wait in another room. Then answer more questions about the problem, then wait. Then Maven had to lie down to answer questions about the problem and give blood. The young and serious doctor refused to crack a smile as he asked if Maven felt up to returning to the first waiting room or preferred to remain horizontal. And we waited. In fact we waited out the doctor and another was on shift by the time we gathered the courage to ask how the tests were coming. Five more minutes till they led us to another room, this one with beds, one of which was assigned to hold Maven. We waited, 4 ½ hours in all, until two men and a woman gathered 10 feet from us to discuss Maven’s case just loud enough for us to overhear bits of it. Finally Dr. Singh told us that there was no sign of malaria in the blood, and that Maven’s symptoms were not severe enough to be cerebral malaria, but since she has no fever it could be a case of undetectable malaria. He added that the hospital can’t prescribe anti-malarials based on unconfirmed suspicion – they can be prescribed only when Maven starts peeing blood. The GP, however, could have prescribed drugs, had he not panicked.
Dr. Singh told us not to worry – he comes from another country where malaria is no big deal and drugs are given over the counter. “That’s because they don’t have the diagnostic tools we have here,” he said. “So it may take 4 ½ hours instead of ½ an hour but you at least know you get the right treatment” once you pee blood. In the meantime, you take aspirin and water and sleep on your giant throbbing head.
Labels: England, non-fiction, Travel
